Alexander Lebedev, this year's star speaker at the Society of Editors conference, talked about the altruistic instincts that drove his purchase of the London Evening Standard and the Indy titles. That prompted one editor to wonder aloud if the Russian might like to rescue another paper. Doug Melloy, who runs the Rotherham Advertiser, asked him directly in a Q&A session after his speech on Sunday if he'd buy the title. "It's a very good paper," Melloy said. Lebedev politely declined, and revealed he has had similar requests from around the world, including — bizarrely — one from a pro-government Zimbabwean title. So many struggling papers to save, so little time...

Kelner keeps his i on the prize

Independent on Sunday editor John Mullin made weary Society of Editors conference delegates smile today as he enlivened a final session with an entertaining turn. Telling them all they should be confident about the future of journalism, he also explained that Indy editor Simon Kelner, who had been due to attend the Glasgow event, was tied to his desk in London overseeing the paper's new baby sister title. "For Simon now it's not just a case of 'me, me, me'", Mullin said of his colleague, "but i, i, i."

Mail man takes aim at Ofcom

In his closing address to the conference today the new SoE president Robin Esser, the Daily Mail's executive managing editor, adopted a combative stance by calling for Ofcom to be scrapped. Taking a leaf out of David Cameron's book, Esser argued the cost of running the media regulator is simply too high, and many of its duties could easily be carried out by the EC and the Competition Commission. The rest could be discharged by the industry itself, he added, holding up the PCC as a model of what self-regulation can achieve — and managing to keep a straight face while he did so. It is Ofcom, of course, that will advise Vince Cable on whether News Corp's bid for Sky — a deal to which Esser's employer Daily Mail & General Trust is opposed — is in the public interest. Would it really be wise to scrap it? And can any of us imagine a world in which executives from Sky, Virgin, ITV and others sit around a table and resolve disputes about sports rights or carriage charges amicably and without rancour?